Interview in RIO
by Rodlox
Summary: AU. Response to McWeir archive challenge regarding Weir in the Moebius reality. Rodney gets kidnapped, and he meets her.


Title:Interview in RIO.

Author:Keenir.

Thanks to Nebulan for beta-reading. Any errors are my own.

Summary:A coda to 'Moebius,' in which Rodney gets kidnapped, and meets Elizabeth.

Replying to challenge:**_Okay, so we've seen Rodney in his AU form in Moebius, but we never saw what Elizabeth was like. I was wondering if somebody wanted to tackle Elizabeth's AU-Moebius version of herself, and how she would handle meeting AU-Moebius Rodney? _**

**_Author's Note:_**Weir's character is based on something she said to Daniel when she was put in charge of the SGC -- about how she used to protest against certain government activities, but now works with the government, in an attempt to reform it from within.

**_And yes, _**both the Fenians and Bull Moose Party really did exist.

Rodney McKay woke up slowly, remembering arguing with that blonde scientist down in the stargate facility…_Samantha…somebody,_ he could recall. He remembered seeing her off, remembered going for a bite to eat at a restaurant in town – a dining experience where there wasn't the slightest hint of lemon anywhere in the building. They'd grabbed him as he was heading to the front doors of said restaurant – and now he was waking back up.

_They tied my hands and put me in a chair. Very original. Not that novelty in these things is a good idea either._

There was someone sitting in a chair opposite him. Her arms weren't tied and neither were her ankles – _mine are_, Rodney noticed, checking one of his feet. On her plain paper-bag brown vest, there was an emblem atop her left breast: an encircled eagle. _No, not an eagle – it's a falcon. A falcon with wings spread to their widest point, and all inside a circle._ They'd been in the news enoughfor even him to know who they were._ Restraint In Order. _The RIO, an activist group just as militant in the pursuit of its goals as the Black Panthers had been.

"You're a blonde," Rodney said, remembering one of the seminars he'd taken, trying to stay as inane and dull as he possibly could_. Shouldn't be too tough_, he figured; _after all, isn't that what Jeannie always said, that I'm as fun as olives on rice pudding?_

The vest woman gave a small nod and an amused smile, but didn't reach up to touch the blonde streaks in her otherwise dark brown hair. "Its still washing out," she said. "Your name is Rodney McKay, I know that, just like I know you're a Canadian citizen in this country on the 'suggestion' of the British foreign ministry," suggesting the quotation marks with nothing but her voice.

"Sounds like you know everything there is to know about me."

"I know what's required," she said, her tone rich with irony. _Figures – didn't they coalesce around some charismatic a while back, wanting to abolish their Official Secrets Act?_

"Then you definitely know more than me."

"Perhaps," she said, sounding almost – to his ears – as a purr. "But it's the bit that you do know, that I don't." Giving him a smile that wasn't amused in the slightest, "And you're going to help me rectify that."

"You're not listening. I don't know anything."

"You know what you're working on."

"Oh be a fine girl, kiss me."

"Yes, you're an astrophysicist. Nice try, Doctor McKay, but it won't work."

"I can try."

"Yes, yes you can. I wouldn't expect anything less from a foreign plant."

"A plant? You're calling me a plant?" _I think I'm insulted. I'm pretty sure she was trying to be insulting._

"You're here at the behest of Queen Elizabeth, I understand, Doctor; and kept under watch by Uncle Sam, who knows you're in a perfect position to relay sensitive information to your mistress."

"I don't have a mistress."

"Your foreign masters."

"There's only one Queen."

"Then you admit it."

Too late, Rodney recalled that most of the initial cadre of RIO was composed of professional diplomats. But they didn't just use words. _How had that one ambassador of ours put it? Oh yes, that 'as long as the USA refuses to recognize the IRA and Fenians as terrorist groups, Her Majesty's government shall likewise refuse to recognize the RIO.'_

"My name is Elizabeth Weir."

_E. Weir. A weir. A gathering of falcons._

Rodney paled.

"Doctor?" she asked.

_Elizabeth Weir. **The **founder and organizer of RIO. Sitting here talking to me._ A pit formed in his stomach as he doubted he should feel complemented by that fact. Grasping at straws in his mind, "If I'm a plant, doesn't that put you at risk?"

"On the contrary, Doctor McKay, it improves my standing."

_I can imagine. Probably helps her image with the isolationists in the Bull Moose Party, not to mention giving her some tokens to cash in when she has trouble with the FBI again._

She hadn't stopped talking, though, he noticed. "I am every bit the patriot, Doctor McKay," Elizabeth said. "Did you perchance see my testimony – either before Congress or the Supreme Court – on the search for communists in American civil and military organizations?"

"I seem to recall being otherwise engaged at the time," Rodney said, wondering what sort of offer had been put on the table to keep the FBI from arresting her the moment she left the courtroom.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Doing what?"

"Nuclear research," he admitted after a pause he felt was long enough. _It's a lie in my case, but its what all the big secret government projects are._

"No," she joshed him.

"Look, I told you. Now can I go?"

"Yes."

"Thanks."

Her eyes were warm, but no less hard than diamond itself. "When you tell me the truth."

"I – what?"

"Cheyanne's bunker was stripped ten years ago, making it unsafe to conduct nuclear research there. Its unsafe to even store a missile with a nuclear warhead there anymore."

Rodney hung his head, grumbling to himself – nonsense words, but still to himself.

"Doctor?"

Reluctantly looking back to her, "That's the official lie. Okay? Are you happy now? You know –"

"That you're lying right now," she interrupted. "I know the state of Cheyanne's interior, Doctor McKay. What I don't know is just what's going on inside. That's why you're here."

"You haven't believed me so far," Rodney pointed out.

"You haven't been honest so far," Elizabeth replied.

"You'd be cuter if you weren't so hostile."

She blinked. Smiling again, friendlier this time, "Then close your eyes, and pretend I'm your queen. My name is, after all, Elizabeth."

"Her Majesty is too old for me."

It was then that the doors were smashed open, with soldiers pouring in through every entryway. Elizabeth didn't even try turning around in prelude to looking for an escape – she just stayed right where she was, looking at Rodney.

"Took you long enough," Rodney grumbled when one of the soldiers came around to untie him.

Sniping wasn't in his nature, but what was…"Just wait til you get handed the paperwork, sir," said Colonel William Kavanagh.

The End


End file.
